


Delinquent

by Jesstavia



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Character Development, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Multi, Past Abuse, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-02 22:04:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16313498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jesstavia/pseuds/Jesstavia
Summary: Jessi has committed murder, and for it she’ll pay with her freedom. Locked in the cell block of the space station that is her home, she must regain her clarity and cope with being on her own for the first time in her life. Her and the 99 other delinquents in jail are being sent down to Earth, a planet that has been uninhabitable for the past 97 years after a nuclear war demolished it. Jessi has to cope with an unknown landscape, uncertain alliances, and her dark past to survive. How on earth is she going to deal with it?





	1. Criminal

“Jessi, what did you do?” 

Fog. Redness. Pain. 

“Why would you have done something like this?”

Disembodied voices. Floating somewhere. 

But mostly pain. 

“Jessi, speak to me!”

How was she even supposed to process what just happened, much less get her mouth to somehow form words around thoughts without substance or shape?

She tried to remember how to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. 

“Jessi, you KILLED him.”

The word brought her zipping back into awareness, her eyes snapping to the body on the floor. The blood. So much blood. Pooling on the tiles, staining her hands. The knife, glinting crimson. 

What have I done?! The only complete thought in her mind, glaring like a fluorescent light. 

Her mom crying outside the door, the guard beside her needling her with questions. Jessi stared at them as if she didn’t recognize them, almost as if they weren’t there at all. 

It was all a blur even then, disjointed and vague flashes of awareness like silent film flickers. The patrolmen in their black uniforms clearing the crowd of onlookers gathered like a flock of geese. The click of the handcuffs behind her, final and ominous. The sight of red everywhere, impressed in her mind like a camera filter. 

The next thing she was fully conscious of was a cell. It was decent enough, with a bed at least somewhat comfortable. The attached bathroom at least had a door and a sink with soap.

The part she hated is the eyes. She constantly felt as though she were on display, a goldfish in a bowl. The guards constantly patrolled, peeking into each cell. The other delinquents’ gazes were vacant with unasked questions. 

Her cell was part of a massive cell block wing of the Ark, the space station containing the last surviving human beings of the nuclear war that rendered Earth uninhabitable. There were dozens of cell blocks, hundreds of iron cages housing teenage criminals.

Criminal, Jessi thought. That’s what I am now. 

For the next few weeks, Jessi tried to keep her sanity as best she could, singing to herself, imagining stories in her head to pass the long empty hours. She wrote frequently, stories and poems and daily journal entries. Watching the other delinquents and imagining what crimes they had committed to land themselves in jail. Anything to ignore the churning guilt in her stomach and the stabbing red memories in her mind. 

Some of the teens talked between cell bars, but Jessi kept to herself for the first month and simply observed, gathering her wits about her as her scars, both physical and mental, slowly began to fade. 

The cells were constructed of glass walls with metal bars on both sides. It was possible to see into the adjoining cells, except for the bathrooms, and Jessi sometimes found herself studying her neighbors, filled with a lonely sort of curiosity. 

The cell on her left held a gorgeous brunette girl with a slim build and steely green eyes. She was the most jaw-droppingly beautiful girl Jessi had ever seen. The girl spent most of her time drawing in a journal, facing the back of her cell and plainly ignoring the other delinquents. 

There was a boy in the cell on her right, a real smart aleck with shaggy brown hair and hooded eyes and a wry humor that cut like a knife. He was quite handsome, even if he was kind of a pain in the ass sometimes. He mainly spent his time talking back to the guards and talking with the boy on his other side. 

Jessi saw them both glance at her the day she was brought in, but neither had tried speaking to her yet, and she found she didn’t care. It took her so long to adjust to her new normal that it was overwhelming to do anything but get herself through one day and into the next. 

Now, after a little over a month of being in lockup, she decided it was time to make friends with her fellow captives if she was going to remain sane. A person could only be by themselves for so long, after all, before they craved the company of others. She decided to start with the girl. 

The dark-haired girl was sitting hunched over in the front corner of her cell, scratching away in her sketchbook with the concentration of an archer in battle. Her back was turned to both the front wall of her cell and the side wall connecting to Jessi’s cell.

“Hi there,” Jessi began awkwardly. 

The brunette jumped and cursed as her pencil struck an errant line through her drawing, which Jessi could now see was a rabbit. 

“Sorry,” Jessi mumbled, feeling intrusive and slightly guilty. “I’ll just go back-“

“No, stay. It’s all right,” the girl reassured in a pleasant tone. “Really. I can fix it. Don’t worry.” She set the drawing aside and turned to Jessi. “I’m Octavia.” Her green eyes pierced like a cat’s, her smile easy and lazed. 

“Jessi. Nice to meet you.” A beat. “I like your rabbit.” She gestured at the sketchbook on the floor of the cell. 

“Thanks,” Octavia chirped. “Drawing’s the only thing that keeps me sane in this hellhole.” She repositioned her body to face where Jessi sat cross legged. “I’ve seen you writing a lot. You’ve gone through like five notebooks since you’ve gotten here. What do you write?”

“Poetry, mostly,” Jessi replied, pushing a lock of short red hair behind her ear. “Stories, sometimes. Journaling. Just something to keep myself from going crazy.”

Octavia looked up at Jessi from beneath her thick, dark lashes, interest evident in the contours of her face. “So can you read me something? I mean if you want.”

Jessi paused, uncertainty settling inside her like drifts of snow. She had never read her poems or stories to anyone before, always insisting on keeping them secret. Her journals were her own personal vault of dreams and sorrows, unobserved and unspoiled by the outside world. 

But there was something about Octavia, some earnestness of both heart and countenance, that made Jessi want to open up to the girl. It was as if she had known her intimately in a past life, and she was drawn to her like a butterfly is called back to a beloved flower by the sweet lull of its nectar. 

Jessi got up and grabbed her notebook from where it lay on her bed, noticing as she did so that the boy in the other adjacent cell was eyeing her absently. When she met his dark eyes with her own, he glanced down and away as if studying the industrial steel gray tiles beneath his feet. 

Back on the floor across from Octavia, Jessi thumbed through her writings to find the poem she had written her first day in the cell. It was her favorite, dark with the empty pain that had gnawed her insides like a rat, cathartically releasing its weight from her consciousness. “Okay, here’s one of my favorite poems I ever wrote,” she began. “It’s called Shadow Heart.

“Darksome angel of the night  
Whose soft breath does tease my lungs  
Whisper to me the secret within  
Which cries out to me from beyond the stars  
Embrace me with arms of velvet strength  
As the moonlight ebbs and flows in sighs  
The bright fire which one warmed my skin  
Is now blown out like a candle’s wish  
I sink beneath the deep ness vast  
Help me to swim to myself again.”

Octavia sat for a moment in silence, playing with a lock of her long, dark hair. Then she looked up and met Jessi’s brown eyes with her green ones full of awe and understanding. “Wow,” she breathed reverently. “Jessi, that was beautiful.” Behind the green Jessi could see a shimmer like starlight, rapt and softly admiring. 

“Thank you,” Jessi replied, abashedly pleased. “I just love writing so much. It’s like I can be a part of a world far away from the Ark, from the worst parts of it, and have my own safe place.”

“I know what you mean,” Octavia agreed. “My brother used to tell me stories when we were kids, read me the few books he could find on the Ark. His voice creating those worlds for me- it was the closest thing I’ve ever found to magic.”

“Brother?” Jessi felt her brow crinkling with confusion. “That means you have the same parents? I didn’t even think that was possible. Nobody else has one.”

“Yeah, I break the rules just by existing.” Octavia sighed, a deeper cast shading her irises as she spoke. “For sixteen years I was a secret hidden away beneath the floor, confined to our little dwelling space. My dad was gone, my mom was always at work, so it was always just me and Bellamy. Everything worth living for was given to me by him. He delivered me on the day of my birth, vowed to protect me, named me even. He read me stories every night, Greek mythology mostly. I owe him everything. I really miss having him around.” Her eyes shimmered with unacknowledged tears. 

“Wow,” Jessi whispered. “He sounds like a great guy. I’m glad you had him. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you all those years, but it’s great that he helped you through it. I wish I could meet him.”

“I’d introduce you if I could.” Octavia was smiling fondly in remembrance. “You’d really like him. He can be tough when he needs to be, but he’s fiercely loyal and he shows when he cares.”

Just then the bell rang for dinner and the two parted to retrieve their trays from the door flap. Jessi sat on her bed to eat, feeling somewhat better to have a friend. That night when she fell asleep, she didn’t mind so much the eyes on her; instead of feeling watched and pried upon, she felt as if she had people there for her, as if she truly were not alone. 

She dreamt she was chasing a rabbit through the forest, its beautiful brown pelt glimmering in the moonlight. She had almost caught up to it when it splashed into a pool of water, disappearing beneath the silver ripples. When it reappeared one lthe other side of the pond, it wasn’t a rabbit, but a girl, with long dark hair spilling down her back. The moon made her skin glow, bare except for shining droplets of water running down her-

Tap. Tap. Tap. 

Jessi awoke to a noise off to her right, groaned, and turned over. She was just settling back into the fog of sleep when-

Tap. Tap-tap-tap. 

Turning back over, she saw the boy watching her from between the bars. In the shadows she could just make out his wave. She set her feet quietly on the floor, padded barefoot gently to the adjoining glass, and followed him to the back corner of the wall where the two cells touched. 

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Uh, hi,” Jessi mumbled, still half asleep. She was also vaguely aware that if the guards caught them talking when they were supposed to be sleeping it would be the worse for both of them. “What do you want?” Her voice sounded groggy and raspy to her ears. 

“I heard your poem,” the boy said, “and I wanted to tell you that it was really good. And I’m Murphy by the way.”

“Jessi.” She felt confused. This was nothing like the smartass boy she saw always trying to bait the guards with his barbed words. “So are you gonna say something mean now, or-“

A smirk rose on Murphy’s face. “Why, would you like me to be hard on you?” 

Jessi flushed. “No, I just meant-“

“Don’t worry,” Murphy cut in. “I know I seem like an ass, but that’s only because-“

“Because you are an ass?” Now Jessi was the one smirking. 

“No,” Murphy laughed. “Because humor is how I keep myself from going batshit in a place like this. I can’t have people knowing I’m a softie; my reputation would suffer.”

“A softie, huh?”

“Or a ladies’ man, whichever you prefer.”

Oh my god, was he flirting with her?! Jessi felt a pleasant heat flush her skin and found herself rendered speechless. 

“Anyway,” Murphy continued, “the guards will be back in a few minutes, so you gotta get back. But I’m looking forward to talking with you later.”

Jessi couldn’t wipe the stupid smile off her face. “Yeah, um, same. Night.”

“Night.” Murphy winked and Jessi had to turn away to stop the stupid melting feeling inside her.


	2. Descent

CHAPTER TWO: DESCENT

The morning found Jessi exhausted, sleeping past breakfast to make up for her broken sleep. Her tray lay untouched on the floor, the food growing increasingly colder and inedible as the hours passed. 

“Wake up, Princess,” she heard as though from far away, the nickname making her glow; but she was so tired that she still felt annoyed and disgruntled from being so rudely awoken. 

“Ugh,” she groaned as she rose out of bed, feeling like a corpse rising from a grave. “Murphy, what the fuck? I was trying to sleep.”

“Yeah I noticed,” he answered with a grin. “I overheard the guards talking. Something’s happening.”

“Like what?” Jessi became suddenly aware of the underlying hum of conversation and waves of constant movement beyond her cell. The delinquents were talking, pacing, trying to figure out what was going on. The guards were talking among themselves, flipping pages on clipboards and barking orders into walkie talkies. 

“I don’t know,” Murphy replied, absently rubbing the back of his neck. He seemed unconcerned for the most part. “Probably something big.”

“No shit,” Jessi mumbled, still tired from her late night conversation with this stupid brown-eyed boy. It was his fault she felt like a bleary-eyed zombie. 

The side of Murphy’s mouth twitched in an amused smirk. “Sorry I kept you up babe. Don’t bite my head off over it.”

“I’m sorry,” Jessi relented, her compromised sleep also sharpening her emotions, causing her to feel bad for being snippy. It wasn’t his fault she had also been woken up by nightmares of red and glinting silver and the face that would haunt her forever-

“Hey, it’s fine,” Murphy said, noticing the shadow that had wrapped around Jessi like a blanket. His face was even, kind almost, which was a change from its usual smarmy grin. 

A guard suddenly appeared at Jessi’s cell door, unlocking it and yanking her roughly out. The momentum caused her to bump into Octavia, who was already outside her cell, in line behind an increasing number of delinquents. Jessi was too shocked to say anything, but she found Octavia’s green eyes in silent apology. Murphy was thrown from his cell next, unceremoniously pushed from behind on his thin shoulder. 

“What, no handcuffs?” Murphy pretended to be disappointed, holding up his hands as if pleading. “You know I don’t like it vanilla.”

“Shut up!” The guard shoved him roughly toward the gathering of delinquents. “Everyone shut up and line up. No talking. No questions. Follow us and stay in line!”

Jessi caught Murphy’s eye and he winked at her. She blushed like nobody’s business and looked down at her feet as they followed Octavia’s brown leather boots. 

They walked in a line like ducklings, following the lead guard until they found themselves in the dropship hangar.

“What’s this?” Murphy asked with a laugh. “We’re going on a spacewalk now? Or are you gonna float us?”

The guard nearest him slapped him across the face. “Shut up. Now everyone get in the damn ship and buckle up. No questions.”

Murphy recoiled and wordlessly followed the line toward the multiple ladders of the dropship. Nervous energy rang in the silent air. Jessi followed close behind him, Octavia right at her heels. 

She found a seat beside Murphy, who smiled weakly at her as she sat down. Octavia took the seat on Jessi’s other side. Jessi smiled gratefully at the other girl. Octavia gently took Jessi’s hand, lacing their fingers together. 

“We’re in this together,” Octavia whispered to Jessi, squeezing her hand tightly. Jessi squeezed back and smiled through the nerves that were racing through her. 

Murphy smirked as he saw their hands. “So are y’all a thing now or am I invited too?”

“Shut the fuck up, pussy bitch,” Octavia muttered. 

“Seriously, Murphy,” Jessi added, “please just shut up for once.” But despite her harsh words, she grabbed Murphy’s hand as well. 

He seemed somewhat taken aback but wrapped his big fingers around her small ones. “Sorry Princess,” he whispered. 

If Jessi weren’t already frazzled from being in a spaceship headed god knew where, she was sandwiched between two gorgeous human beings and was holding both of their hands. She was buzzing, her palms sweaty, her eyes darting around the ship. Some passengers caught her eye, some were muttering prayers or otherwise had their eyes closed. 

A rumbling sounded beneath them, and Jessi flinched. The ship’s door shut with a hydraulic whine, the hiss sounding to Jessi like an angry cat. Multiple people screamed and startled, the epidemic of panic spreading like wildfire. 

“Hey,” Octavia murmured, laying her head on Jessi’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, all right? Squeeze my hand if you’re scared. I’m right here.” Her soft breath whispered like butterfly wings on Jessi’s neck, sending a pleasant shiver down her spine. 

“Me too,” Murphy added gently, his eyes filled with sincerity and kindness. “Promise I won’t be an ass this time, okay, Princess?” He smiled softly at her, squeezing her hand tightly. 

“Are you bi?” Octavia whispered in Jessi’s ear, sending yet another shiver down her body.

Jessi nodded, so shocked by the question that she forgot to be afraid. 

“Good,” Octavia whispered, her voice holding a soft note of something like promise or teasing, or perhaps both. 

“And poly,” Jessi added, and then she regretted it because why should that matter right now? They were probably all going to die anyway. What did her relationship preferences have to do with anything?

“Fine with me,” Octavia added. “I could be down with that, if you wanted to be with me, I mean.”

“Me too,” Murphy said on her other side. “A threesome would be an added bonus.”

Thank god the engines started then because Jessi had absolutely no idea what the fuck to say or do in that situation. Was this even happening?

The ship pushed away from its mooring and Jessi shut her eyes, tucking her head into her chest. The G forces pushing on her made her stomach feel like it was left behind in the docking bay. She felt like it was squeezing her insides with a vice, and she felt like crying and screaming all at the same time. 

“Shh, baby, I’m here,” Octavia soothed, placing a gentle kiss on Jessi’s cheek. “I’m here, okay, look at me, focus on me.”

Jessi looked up into those beautiful green eyes and forced a smile. “Thank you Octavia.” She focused on breathing, looking at the beautiful girl beside her. In. Out. In. Out. 

Just then the forces stopped and the ship eased into zero gravity. Jessi’s stomach still felt odd, but at least it wasn’t as bad as before. She felt floaty and disoriented. 

Murphy leaned in, his husky voice on the other side of Jessi’s neck. “So is she gonna get all the action or-“ 

“Shut up, Murphy,” Jessi answered, smiling slightly. She turned and kissed his cheek, her lips soft but quick. 

When she turned back to face the other delinquents, a girl with curly blonde hair was looking at her with disgust. “Is that what you need to be focusing on right now?” she scoffed. “Relationships? We don’t even know if we’re going to live through the landing.”

“Leave her alone,” Octavia snarled, her hand tightening instinctively in Jessi’s, her body pressing against hers protectively. “Worry about yourself.”

“You’re just jealous,” Murphy joked, “that you didn’t get to her first.” Despite his joking words, there was a hard cast to his eyes, and Jessi found herself thinking that she wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. 

The blonde scowled and looked away, turning to the African American boy beside her. They both looked disapproving. 

Jessi smiled weakly as she turned away from her haters. “Thanks guys.” She sounded smaller than she intended, slightly hurt by the negative attention. 

“Hey,” Octavia said forcefully, lifting Jessi’s chin with the hand that wasn’t being held. “I’m here for you, in any way that I can, whenever you need me.” Her look was fierce but gentle at the same time. 

“Octavia,” Jessi whispered, looking back and trying to blink away tears. “Thank you. So much. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

Since getting locked up in the cell, Jessi had never felt more alone in her life. No longer did she have her mother to support her and keep her company. She was truly alone for the first time ever. And it had been scary. 

But now, as she looked into Octavia’s emerald eyes, she felt that just maybe she had found someone with whom to go through the journey of whatever was to come. 

“Hey.” Murphy’s gentle voice brushed her ear as he leaned in close. “If any of those fuckers hurt you in any way I’ll kill them.”

Jessi laughed lightly, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She had seen enough violence in her lifetime. 

All of a sudden, the thrusters shut on with loud hissing sounds that shook the floor of the dropship. The ship was close to landfall. 

Earth, Jessi realized. They’re sending us to Earth. But Earth was uninhabitable... or was it?

The ship dropped onto the ground with a soft thud, the engine cutting off suddenly. The delinquents sat in silence, stunned at the sudden loss of deafening noise. They looked at each other, clicking their seat belts open but remaining seated, looking lost and afraid. 

Murphy stood up and pulled Jessi with him. “What are you losers waiting for?” He tugged her to the door of the ship, Octavia right behind. 

“Wait,” the blonde girl cried, rushing forward from her place and towards the closed dropship door. “The air could be toxic.”

“If the air is toxic,” a male voice grumbled, “we’re all dead anyway.”

“Bellamy?” Octavia let go of Jessi’s hand and ran over to the man who had spoken. She looked pleased yet disbelieving. “Bell, is that you?” She looked at his black jacket, the chest guarded by bulletproof padding, patches adorning the sleeves. “Is that a guard’s uniform?” she asked with a slight sheen of disapproval. 

“Octavia.” His voice was warm and pleased, his mouth curving up immediately. “I’m so glad you’re okay, sis.” He looked down at his jacket sheepishly. “I wore this to sneak onboard so I could come down with you.” He wrapped her in his arms and hugged her tight, lifting her as she squealed happily. 

When he let go of his sister and had sat her down, he caught sight of Jessi. “Hey, I’m Bellamy.” He held his hand out for her to shake, his deep brown eyes lit merrily. 

“Oh, hi, I’m Jessi.” She felt flustered as her small hand fit in his large one. Bellamy was just so goddamn beautiful. He had olive skin dotted with freckles like stars. His black hair was curly and shaggy, and his smile was so perfect she couldn’t believe he was real. “You’re Octavia’s brother?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “How do you know my sister?” He looked over at Octavia then back at Jessi. 

“Like this,” Octavia said, grabbing Jessi and kissing her right on the mouth, soft and gentle and quick. Jessi stepped back stunned and grinning like a fool, feeling heat flicker beneath her cheeks. 

“Well,” Bellamy said, chuckling gently. “You make her happy Jessi, okay? She deserves that.” He patted Octavia’s shoulder. 

“I will.” Jessi was extremely flustered and pleased at the same time. She linked fingers with Octavia again and smiled at her. 

“Why don’t you both be the first on Earth?” Bellamy suggested. “Lez be a part of history.”

“Shut up,” Octavia laughed, swatting her brother playfully. “Okay, Jessi, you ready?” Her eyes were determined but with a layer of worry buried beneath. 

Jessi nodded, steeling herself for the unknowable. It was now or never. 

Bellamy pulled a lever in the metal panel on the wall and the door to the dropship lowered in a puff of hydraulic steam. It landed on the ground like a ramp. 

Octavia and Jessi, hands held tightly together, walked together down the metal ramp. At the end, they paused. Octavia looked at Jessi and squeezed her hand. And they both stepped off onto the green expanse outside. 

Octavia breathed deeply, grinning at Jessi as the sweet air filled her lungs. Trees covered in green moss surrounded the small glade where they had landed. Everywhere was green, lush and beautiful, full of life and air and something else Jessi couldn’t quite name- a power, a spirit, almost. 

Jessi was overcome with emotion, flinging herself into Octavia’s arms. She breathed in the brunette’s perfume, hints of sandalwood and jasmine and something sweet and singular. “We just made history,” she whispered in her ear. “The first people on the ground in a hundred years.”

“And we did it together,” Octavia murmured. She placed a gentle kiss on Jessi’s cheek. Then she turned to the kids still waiting in the dropship. “What are you waiting for?” she called. “WE’RE BACK BITCHES!”


	3. Camp

The other delinquents came spilling out of the dropship, roaring with ecstatic cheers and whoops. It was absolute chaos. The noise drove Jessi away to the quiet respite of the trees, close enough to the others so as not to get lost. The tree closest to the group had knots placed suitably for climbing, and Jessi nimbly clambered up to the lowest branch. It was thick and wide, forked to form a comfortable seat. 

The air was sweeter higher up, and Jessi sighed as she reclined against the rough bark. She watched below as Bellamy began unloading the supplies from the dropship. There were multiple tents, many of them for four people, a few of them singles and doubles. Barrels stocked full of food and camping supplies were stored in the upper floor of the ship, which served as a sort of cargo hold. 

“Anyone who is able needs to help me set up camp,” Bellamy called to the rambunctious kids. “If you want us all to survive, we need to work together and make this camp sustainable.” He began handing out assignments to the kids who began to assemble around him, distributing tents and sleeping bags, and working on deciding the appropriate amount of rations for each person. 

Jessi was about to climb down the tree when Bellamy caught her eye, motioning that she was fine to stay where she was. She nodded her thanks and he smiled, glad to put off reality for a while longer. She was still recovering from the perilous descent, her nerves fried and her stomach nauseated, her heart in flutters of anxiety. She was nervous about being in a new place, uncertain of the dangers the group would face or how they would manage to survive for very long without aid or supervision. 

She watched below as Octavia built a tent with her brother, talking pleasantly among themselves. Murphy was unpacking boxes filled with supplies. The kids were all scuttling about like a troupe of ants. She wanted to help, really she did, but she was overcome with nerves and overwhelmed by all of the stimulation flooding her senses. She needed a moment to just be, to breathe and settle calmly within herself before going down to help out. 

Suddenly, the blonde girl appeared below and began to ascend the tree trunk, her boots easily finding one knot after another. She pulled herself up onto the branch Jessi was on, sitting on the opposite side of the crook. 

“Is it okay if I join you?” the girl asked uncertainly. 

Jessi nodded, not sure what to say to this girl who had called her out so openly on the journey to Earth. She had seemed so strong willed that Jessi was certain she would confront her further, perhaps even sparking an argument. Jessi was not in the frame of mind to defend herself against someone who was so outspoken. 

“I just wanted to apologize,” the girl started, “for what I said on the ship. I heard about you and I know you’ve been through something really rough. I’m Clarke.” Her voice was soft and apologetic with a hint of a friendly spark. 

Jessi’s eyes found the girl’s blue eyes and smiled, grateful for the apology. She was glad Clarke wouldn’t turn out to be her enemy, because a rival was the last thing she needed in the disconcerting situation they were all in. “It’s okay,” she replied. “I know you’ve been through a lot too; we all have. I’m Jessi. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Clarke agreed. “Nice view from up here.” 

Jessi nodded. It really was. You could see the surrounding trees, the camp below, and the sky above. They sat in silence for a few minutes, checking out the scenery. 

Clarke broke the silence. “Hey, let’s go down and help the others. My friends seem helpless with that tent.” She pointed to two brunette girls, one thin and olive skinned with dark, long hair, and the other slightly curvy and pale with a light bob. They were gathered around a heap of tent-building materials, fumbling with various pieces and trying in vain to assemble them. 

Jessi followed Clarke down the tree’s natural ladder and over to where the two girls were struggling with the tent. 

“Oh my god!” Clarke cried. “You guys are so bad at this it’s not even funny.” She gestured at the jumble of tarp and tent poles. 

“Hey,” said the paler girl, trying to fit a pole into a sleeve of the tent cover. “We’re trying. These things don’t come with instructions.”

“This is Jessi,” Clarke said as Jessi waved. She motioned to the girl with the bob. “This is Jamie,” then to the olive-skinned girl, “and this is Nicole.”

“Hey,” Jamie said, wiping sweat from her brow. She looked exhausted but content. “Nice to meet you. Wanna help us set up the tent?”

“Sure,” Jessi replied, picking up a tent pole. “How do you do this anyway?” She searched the pile for something to connect it with. 

Nicole shrugged, a sigh escaping her pink lips. “Beats me. I’ve never even heard of a tent until we got down here.”

Clarke laughed and pointed across the pile. “All right, hand me that pole over there, Jamie?”

The three girls worked together to piece together the tent as best they could. Finally, after several back-breaking, sweat-drenched hours, they had gotten the four-person tent set up correctly. During the work, Jamie had talked excitedly about the food she had cooked on the Ark for the kitchens, and she and Clarke compared favorite art techniques. Nicole was fascinated with space, and though her voice was meek and soft, it became quicker and more excited as she waxed rhapsodic about wormholes and black holes. Jamie swore they were the same thing, while Clarke begged to digger. They argued goodnaturedly for a while about the subject as they worked. 

When they had finished, it was heading on to dusk. Jamie and a few of the others set about cooking the dehydrated food packets from the dropship. Clarke and Nicole went to hunt for firewood. Jessi stayed behind in the tent, journaling on the back of space logs with a golf pencil. 

The tent flap swished back and Murphy and Octavia appeared. 

“Hey,” Octavia said as she paused in the entryway. “Can we come in?”

“Sure,” Jessi acquiesced. She set aside her writing and smiled as they both settled near her on the sleeping bags arranged across the floor. “I’m guessing this is about the whole relationship thing, right?”

“Yeah,” Murphy replied, pushing back a lock of his hair and looking slightly sheepish. “I don’t know how this is supposed to work.”

“We both just want you to be happy,” Octavia explained as she glanced between Jessi and Murphy. “I don’t know how to make this work, but Murphy and I want to try.”

“Well,” Jessi began, looking back and forth between the two, “I like both of you. I want to see where it goes with each of you, but not all together. Like I’d be with both of you but you guys wouldn’t be together.”

“Oh, thank god,” Octavia breathed, her face the picture of relief. A playful smirk danced at the edge of her mouth. “I did not want to take any part in dick stuff.”

“Damn it,” Murphy swore. “I was hoping for a threesome.”

Jessi laughed. “The deal is what it is. Take it or leave it.”

“I’m just joking,” Murphy added, turning to Octavia. “You’re a card-carrying lesbian, Vi. I respect that.”

“Thank you.” Octavia looked back at Jessi with sparkling eyes. 

“So what, are we going to make a schedule?” Murphy smirked. “Because I’d like to make an appointment.”

“Shut up, Murphy” Jessi and Octavia said in unison, causing them to erupt in a fit of giggles. 

“I just want to play it by ear,” Jessi said once the laughter had died away. “Like just do whatever feels natural when it strikes me. But rules. We need rules.”

“Okay.” Octavia nodded. “I’m listening.”

“No comparing one relationship to the other,” Jessi stated. “They won’t necessarily be equal; I might like one of you more than the other and you need to accept that. No jealousy or trying to sabotage the other. When I’m with one of you, the other doesn’t need to be around, and that might be for the best. Respect each other and try to be friends at least. That’s pretty much all I’m asking.”

“Sounds fair,” Murphy agreed. Octavia nodded as well. 

“Awesome.” Jessi smiled. “I’m starving. Let’s go get some food. Dinner’s probably ready by now.”


End file.
